GLENDALE, Ariz. – When Cam Spencer left Monday night’s championship game with 36 seconds left and a championship in hand, he nearly sent UConn coach Dan Hurley flying.
The graduate guard, who rivals Hurley’s intensity, walked over to the sideline and wound up for a high-five before landing a nasty chest bump that made the coach take three steps back. Spencer had been waiting a long time for that moment, and played a major role in making it happen.
“The fire that he instilled was the Andre Jackson stuff and the Adama Sanogo stuff that you have to have, because Tristen (Newton) is total ice, to have that fire and ice in the backcourt,” Hurley said outside the Huskies’ locker room that was adorned with a national champions decal for the second year in a row. “I just think that he pushed this team a lot this year, just his maniacal pursuit of a championship this year because he hadn’t experienced it. He’s got a toughness about him that’s unmatched.”
The Dan Hurley/Cam Spencer embrace shows how perfect of a match they are pic.twitter.com/QudCe4vSQN
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Spencer had one Division I offer to play college basketball coming out of high school in Davidsonville, Maryland. He had no choice but to take it – or play college lacrosse instead – and spent three years at Loyola Maryland before one at Rutgers and choosing to join the reigning national champions.
UConn needed him, too, after losing three NBA-level starters and five of its top eight scorers from last season. He was to help fill the role of Jordan Hawkins, one of, if not the best shooter in college basketball and a lottery pick last season. His personality helped fill the void of the others.
“It was all about the team and going to accomplish another championship. I had never been a part of a championship like this and that’s really what Coach Hurley and I talked about in the recruiting process. This was our goal from Day One, so to do it with your brothers and your family that you go to war with every day is just really special right now,” Spencer said.
Spencer carried a basketball around State Farm Stadium all weekend, eager to just get on the court and get to that moment where he could cut down the net.He scored seven of the Huskies’ first 11 points to start the game and finished with 11, plus a team-best eight rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block. When he got to the top of the ladder, the fifth-year guard held a thumb up and then waved on the crowd, the same crowd he energized all year with his signature fist pump.
“The thought of Cam Spencer and (freshman) Steph Castle in their short window of time with us not to experience a national championship like we all have felt …” Hurley reflected on the dais. “Once we realized how good the team was, that became a little bit of a pressure point. It would have sucked to have blue and yellow confetti and we have to walk off that court with Cam Spencer and Steph Castle.”
Another title for the Hurley family
Dan Hurley was watching in Minneapolis when his brother Bobby won the 1992 national championship, his second in a row as the point guard at Duke. Now Dan has joined his brother in the elite club. Only eight programs have climbed the mountain in consecutive seasons, only three have since the tournament expanded in 1985, with Florida the most recent to do it in 2006-07 after returning its entire starting five.
“It’s incredible to join Bob in that club. Bob was in the arena tonight. He wanted to kind of stay out of the camera lens. He was in a box enjoying the comfort of that tonight. It was just awesome to have him here. Obviously my dad… It’s like my dad, he looks at me, he looks at my brother, he sees us coaching in college, what it would have looked like for him if he was doing it. So I know it means a lot to me and Bob, we’re the version of my father that would be coaching in college. Even after back-to-back for me, I’m still just a worse version of him. A little bit worse. I’m getting better, and I’m coming for him,” Dan said, laughing.
“I think it’s up there in terms of the greatest two-year runs that a program maybe has ever had just because – I can’t say anything about Duke because I’m going to piss my brother off. But I guess I can say stuff about Florida. … But I love Billy Donovan. So I’m in a bad spot.”
Huskies No. 1 in post-NCAA Tournament AP poll
Surprise, surprise. UConn was atop the first post-NCAA Tournament AP poll after winning the title. The Huskies received all 58 first-place votes. Runner-up Purdue was ranked second, followed by Alabama and Houston tied for third and Tennessee at No. 5. From the Big East, Marquette was No. 12 and Creighton No. 13. Seton Hall, the NIT champion, was in the receiving votes category.
Portnoy’s massive UConn bet hits
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy placed what he said was the greatest bet of his life on UConn. At the start of March Madness, Portnoy placed $600,000 on the Huskies to go back-to-back and walked out of State Farm Stadium with a $2.1 million profit.
“Thank you #uconn Destroyed everybody and everything in their path. They’d win the tournament 100 out of 100 times. The biggest win of my life by a mile,” he posted to his 3.1 million followers on X.
All-Tournament Huskies
With Newton being named the Most Outstanding Player, and Spencer, Donovan Clingan and Castle on the All-Tournament team, UConn had four of the five players recognized. The last team to have that many All-Tournament selections was Villanova in 2018, and before that it was Florida in 2006.
